4 Tips to Keep Your Website Safe From DDoS Attacks

Website development is a multi-faceted process that involves many activities, such as planning and testing. However, it doesn’t stop once everything is published and accessible. With so many dangers online, constant updates and optimizations must be made, which means that a website is never really “finished.”

That said, one of the problems your website might encounter is something called DDoS attack, which is short for “distributed denial-of-service attack.” In simple terms, it’s a type of cyber attack that is designed to flood your server with requests to the point that its resources get so strained that your website stops working.

As a side-effect, when your customers try to access your site and see it performing extremely poorly, your reputation gets damaged and you start to lose customers.

While there is no way to completely eliminate the risk of such an attack, there are ways to reduce its chances and minimize its potential for damage:

1. Utilize anti-DDoS solutions

There are many solutions to safeguard against DDoS attacks. For example, you can use network firewalls and other types of applications to block abnormal traffic. Another instance would be using load balancers to distribute incoming requests to different servers to share the strain.

If you are already working with web server software, you can also consider adding anti-DDoS functionality with software modules. 

2. Implement protective hardware

There is plenty of anti-DDoS equipment out there provided by several vendors that work alongside your network’s firewall. Their job is to ensure these attacks are addressed before they reach your server and start affecting it.

As for how they work, it will depend on the vendor. Generally, this equipment will create a baseline for regular traffic and block any abnormal activities. The one downside to such hardware is that its capability is limited. While new technology has allowed these tools to work at incredible speeds, attacks can still overwhelm such systems and slow down the network.

3. Opt for cloud-based DNS providers

Your DNS servers are also at risk of being flooded with requests that can cripple its operations. For this reason, you must have strategies in place, such as placing the DNS servers in different networks to keep the network running even if one server is compromised.

That said, one of the best ways to fight DDoS attacks on your DNS servers is to opt for cloud DNS. That is because you will not have to invest in anti-DDoS yourself, and these service providers will have already implemented the best security strategies. Plus, you gain more bandwidth and multiple DNS availability throughout the globe, minimizing the risk of such an attack.

4. Increase bandwidth

The easiest and most straightforward way to counteract DDoS attacks is to add more bandwidth to the network. While this will not prevent attacks from occurring, what it does is hopefully provide enough bandwidth to continue operating even in the face of an attack. This allows you to start addressing the problem without your servers becoming compromised.

Do note that this should never be your only solution, as aggressive attacks may eventually overcome your bandwidth anyway. Think of this solution as giving yourself a little headroom to work with if an attack takes place.

Conclusion

If possible, implement all of these solutions. That way, you minimize the risk of successful DDoS attacks that can undermine your reputation, brand image, and cause you to lose customers.

That said, some of these solutions can come at extreme prices, meaning that you will have to invest a lot of money to make them work. For this reason, we highly recommend working with cloud service providers. They already have the latest anti-DDoS measures in place, and you will get to enjoy each one without having to make a substantial investment.

Are you looking for a cloud VPS with DDoS protection? I/O Zoom has precisely what you need! We are a hosting provider with a variety of hosting solutions, all of which come with 10 Gbps DDoS protection at no extra cost. Reach out to us today!